RWA Nationals ROCKED!!

I have to say that the trip was amazing. Every bit of it. (Well, except for the flight home, but I'll tell you about that later).

Holly Greenfield and I got to the hotel about 1pm on Wednesday, July 11th and were simply awed by the beauty of the hotel. It was an amazing hotel.

This is the view from the 10th floor hallway where our room was.
This is the waterfall that was inside of the hotel - absolutely beautiful!!

We definitely had some interesting moments to start off with - the first day, we hit the goody room and started stocking up on the great promotional items that all of the authors had in there - then came the Embarrassing Moment - you see, they had a room called the "Press Room" where there were tons of books laid out on the table already autographed. Well, Holly and I, being the newbie first-timers that we were, figured that they were for free! So, what did we do? We started loading up!! Yep, had a huge armload of these books in our arms when a woman came over to us and was looking at me funny. So, I said "These are for free right?" And got a shocking answer that no, they weren't! Oh Hell....back on the table they go, in the spots that they were in - and my face must have been about as red as a tomato! I have to say it gave Holly and I a great laugh moment once we got out of that room!!

Me and my best friend, Holly outside of the hotel. I was so glad that she was there with me - it definitely would not have been nearly as much fun without her!

The first night of the conference, there was a Literacy Booksigning that we went to with about 450 authors signing / selling books to benefit adult illiteracy. It was amazing! This pic below is only a hint of the amount of people that were there:
Sherrilyn Kenyon below - She is such a down-to-earth, friendly, and personable person.

Holly and I with Nora Roberts!!! That was definitely a highlight of my conference - I have always wanted to meet her. She is one of my favorite authors and an inspiration to all of us writers!

Me with Shana Abe below - I absolutely loved her book "The Smoke Thief" and just got the sequal to that called "The Dream Thief". Awesome novels that I highly recommend to anyone to read!

We also had a wonderful time with the gals from our local chapter, CNYRW. Kari Townsend and Barbie Jo Bogart (aka Barb Witek) were so much fun to hang out with! We had a blast at the bar and luncheons with them - you should just hear them and all the hilarious stories they have - if there's something funny that happens, you can bet it will happen to them! Here is a picture of Gayle Callen (published author for Avon and also a member of CNYRW) and Barb and Kari (soon-to-be published authors!):

If you want to here more about Nationals or learn more about the ladies I hung out with - check out these blogs:

http://www.hollyweeden.blogspot.com/

http://www.karileetownsend.blogspot.com/

http://www.irishbarbie.blogspot.com/

Continuing on:

So, we couldn't stay at this beautiful hotel without getting at least one trip to the pool! And considering that the temp was in the low 90's every day in Dallas, TX - the pool was a very refreshing experience. Here's a pic of me, Suemarie, Carol, (both members of CNYRW too - see there were a lot of us there!) and Holly enjoying the pool:

I have to thank Suemarie for all of the wonderful advice and tips that she gave Holly and I while we were at the conference. She was a wealth of info and readily willing to share! Thanks Suemarie!! Best of luck to you - I know we'll be seeing those books on the shelves soon!

OK - I'm going to stop for now. But come back soon - I'll have more about Nationals posted shortly and you won't want to miss the best part about my trip: Medieval Times and the HOTTEST knights around!!